Objectors of Native American settlement revealed

HELENA - Carol Good Bear started getting the calls about a week
ago, after the attorneys who had negotiated a $3.4 billion
settlement over misspent Native American land royalties published
the phone numbers and addresses of the four people objecting to the
deal.

At first, the resident of New Town, N.D., hung up on the angry
voices at the other end. After 15 calls, she unplugged her home
phone and started screening her cell phone calls.

She said she worries for her safety now that her address is in
the hands of hundreds of thousands of people who might blame her
for holding up their money.

"To put my name out there for the public, I think that's scary
that these attorneys would use this tactic and intimidate me into
dropping my appeal," Good Bear said. "I don't have protection. If
somebody is upset about all this and comes at me with a gun, what
am I supposed to do?"

The attorneys who published the Jan. 20 open letter represent up
to 500,000 plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit named after
Elouise Cobell, the Blackfeet woman from Montana who spent nearly
16 years trying to hold the U.S. government accountable for more
than a century's worth of mismanaged Native American accounts.

The lawsuit claims U.S. officials stole or squandered billions
of dollars in royalties owed for land leased for oil, gas, grazing
and other uses.

Cobell died in October, just months after a federal judge
approved the largest government class-action settlement in U.S.
history.

Under the settlement, $1.4 billion would go to individual Native
American account holders. Some $2 billion would be used by the
government to buy up fractionated tribal lands from individual
owners willing to sell, and then turn those lands over to tribes.
Another $60 million would be used for a scholarship fund for young
Natives.

The settlement took a year to push through Congress, then months
for final judicial approval. After the settlement was approved,
Good Bear and three other people filed separate objections, each
for different reasons.

Those appeals must be heard by a federal appeals court before
any money from the settlement can be distributed, with the first
scheduled to be heard Feb. 16.

The plaintiffs' attorneys, led by Dennis Gingold of Washington,
D.C., wrote in their letter that the "hopes and wishes of 500,000
individual Indians" had been delayed by those four people. If it
wasn't for them, the first payments would have been made before
Thanksgiving, the letter said.

"There is little doubt that they do not share the desires or
care about the needs of the class, over 99.9 percent of whom
support a prompt conclusion to this long-running, acrimonious
case," the attorneys wrote.

The letter went on to list the names, phone numbers and
addresses of Good Bear; Kimberly Craven of Boulder, Co.; Charles
Colombe of Mission, S.D.; and Mary Lee Johns of Lincoln, Neb. The
attorneys invited people to "ask them directly about their motives"
and cautioned them to "please be civil in your communications."

The letter was published in the "Ask Elouise" email that updates
class members on the settlement and also was published on at least
one website dealing with Native American issues.

Gingold said Monday that he was preparing for oral arguments and
could not comment on the letter.

Good Bear and Johns, who agreed to speak to The Associated
Press, said they believe the letter was an attempt to intimidate
them into dropping their appeals, but it will not work.

"Obviously they don't know me to think I could be brow-beaten
into quitting," Johns said.

Both said they have received phone calls of support interspersed
with the angry ones.

Craven and Colombe declined to comment, referring questions to
their attorneys. Craven's attorney, Ted Frank, said in an email
that he took his concerns to the plaintiffs' attorneys and they
agreed to stop disseminating the letter.

Frank said he was satisfied with that promise and that
attempting to have the judge address whether the letter was right
or wrong would only distract from the appeal.

"Other than a corrective communication and sanctions, there
isn't much else we could get in relief from the court, and neither
is worth the distraction from preparation for oral argument," Frank
said.

Each objector is appealing the settlement for his or her own
reasons. Craven and Johns both say the settlement does not include
an accounting for how much money was lost, which is what Cobell
originally set out to accomplish, and that many class members did
not understand that they could have opted out of the deal.

Johns and Good Bear both object to the class of landowners that
the settlement creates, saying each is different and their claims
should be assessed differently. Johns added that the tribes should
have been involved in the process from the beginning, not just
individuals.

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